SAFETY MANAGEMENT OVERSEAS S.A. Mr. Chris Welsby

“Everything from the start until the completion of the vessel is checked by us.”

By Mr. Chris Welsb

SAFETY MANAGEMENT OVERSEAS S.A.
Superintendent Engineer

ＫＥＩ: Could you tell me about your daily work here in IHIMU?

Mr.Welsby: We are here to supervise a new building project for the construction of 2 x 87,000 DWT Bulk Carriers. Our main purpose for being here is to make sure that these vessels are built to the required specification as agreed between the Seller and the Owner. So from construction of the very first block until completion of the vessel everything is inspected and checked by us.; “KEI’s system is very simple but also advanced.”

ＫＥＩ: And now, what do you think of KEI System’s products?

Mr.Welsby

My personal opinion and I can only comment on the KEI system installed on our existing vessels; I think the KEI system on our vessels is very good. I think it’s “simplicity at its best”. I mean, many monitoring systems that you can find in market place these days are very technically advanced but difficult to understand for everyday operations and over specified for the application it’s being used for.

With our KEI system, we find it very easy to understand and it gives us all the information we need for the monitoring of engine room equipment. Also we know that if we should ever require to add an optional extra in the future, this can be simply without having to disrupt everyday operations. Our Engine Room crew found this system very easy to learn and operate in a short time.

So overall we are very happy with our KEI Monitoring System. We have investigated the possibilities to introduce the same system onto other of our existing vessels to standardize the fleet, but this is still under evaluation.

“After sales service and customer support is very important.”

ＫＥＩ: What do you think is the most important thing for monitoring systems?

Mr.Welsby

Our vessels are UMS (Un manned Machinery Space), if you have a monitoring system that is unreliable, you could end up with a situation in which that particular vessel could loose in UMS notation. This is as situation that no ship owner wishes to have to experience so this is where the systems reliability is of the utmost importance and the Customer support service.

So far we have found that if we need to ask a question we can just pick up the phone and call directly to customer support department and get direct answers to our questions. To many system manufactures these days just want to sell a product and promise you the world to convince you to buy it and then disappear when you need support. So many times we have called to a certain monitoring system manufacture to request help but end up talking to a machine when they advertise 24 hour help line.

Before we actually made the commitment with KEI, we did telephone a few other shipping companies that also have your system, they reported that they had experienced no problems and where satisfied with the KEI product.

ＫＥＩ: I see. That was very nice to hear about our products from other customers. We will continue to try to produce and develop better products and hope that more customers world wide will install our systems.
Thank you very much for your time.

(Interviewed by Miyazaki, KEI)

“KEI’S SYSTEM IS VERY SIMPLE BUT ALSO ADVANCED.”

“Everything from the start until the completion of the vessel is checked by us.”